


we build, then we break

by but_seriously



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Gen, Mystery, Romance, basically everyone is here okay, except shane shane can go fly a kite somewhere in the Appalachia mountains, originals galore, still not sure what to tag it as
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2017-12-04 02:35:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/705535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/but_seriously/pseuds/but_seriously
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: “You can try and rationalize it all you want, Caroline,” Stefan says, wiping blood from his mouth, “but it still hurts, doesn’t it?” </p><p>In which a human Caroline realizes that maybe the animal attacks plaguing this quaint little town aren’t really animal attacks after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

When Bill Forbes announced that he was getting a divorce, what surprised people was not the divorce itself, but the fact that Caroline (Student Body President, cheer captain, bibliophile and reigning Bubblegum Blowing Champion of New England) had not been expecting it at all.

She should have seen it coming, of course, when Daddy bought plane tickets for her to spend her 17th birthday in Los Angeles with him, insisting that it was a special gift for a special occasion.

"Oh," he'd added over the phone, the distance and the time difference making him sound brusque all of a sudden, "my business associate will be there. Steven. You've met him. You don't mind, do you?"

Of course she'd said no, but Caroline couldn't help thinking that the picture of their birthday dinner in the sparkling, crystal frame Steven had got her would have looked so much better with Liz in it. Not that she hadn't tried to get her mother to come along.

"No, you go," Liz said. Even with her back turned, Caroline knew Liz had her mouth set in a straight line. Caroline sat on her overstuffed suitcase (the third one) and, in between huffs of trying to zip her luggage up, tried to convince her mother to pack a bag for herself as well. But even her attempts were half-hearted: Daddy had just bought one ticket, and Caroline just wanted to get the hell out of cramped, hot and humid New York for the summer.

Caroline was set loose on the town, tearing up Rodeo Drive with his credit cards and a thirst for candy short-shorts of every colour to match the different colours she paints her toenails every few days. She managed to put a (very faint, but still noticeable) rosy glow to her pale skin after like, six hours of sunbathing for five days straight. She barely even thought of home, because even thinking of the loud city with the glaring lights and dusty yellow cabs that melted in the heat exhausted her. Days were bright, her dresses were short, and the nights filled with bonfires and cute lifeguards who strummed her soft indie music on their guitars when Daddy was fast asleep.

And Steven was nice.

Steven was everywhere, in fact. When Daddy flipped her French toast in the morning. In the evening to "drop off some laundry". Picking Daddy up on weekends for brunch, and bringing her along as an afterthought.

So she  _should_  have seen it coming when Daddy, with a forkful of cherry-chocolate mousse cake on its way to his mouth, announced: "I've fallen in love with Steven!"

"Seriously." In the middle of her birthday dinner. With Steven's flashy fuschia shirt winking at her in the wink of the candles. A toast and an announcement, in between bites of cherries that her father was gay, and she was supposed to smile.

"Steven is moving to LA to be with me!"

Like she was supposed to be happy for them.

There were probably ten different ways to react to this kind of announcement, but throwing up in the bowl of cherries Steven was passing to her probably wasn't one of them.

People say you can see certain things much clearer when you look back.

Bullshit.

 

 

 

Mystic Falls is… quaint.

That's all she can say, really. Mossy trees, patches of colourful flowers here and there. Friendly people waving hello and welcoming them when Liz stopped by a gas station to pick up the day's news and a soda for an indifferent Caroline. (Seriously. At a  _gas_  station.)

"This is it," Liz announces as they pull into the driveway of a (quaint) yellow house with (quaint) ivy inching up the sides of the windows, with a (quaint) tree that shaded the lawn, providing excellent space for (quaint) afternoons spent reading and sipping lemonade from glasses dripping with condensation. Caroline sees it all flash before her eyes with some kind of nondescript elevator music playing in the background, and she whips her head around to glare at her mother, because, hello, it's an actual  _house_.

"What's with the squirrels and the daisy patches, Mom?" Caroline gripes, one hand gripping her Parker Academy Homecoming Princess sash and the other jabbing one of her cheer trophies at their new house, where a squirrel was perched on the roof, watching curiously. "We don't  _do_  daisy patches. Plastic orchids, maybe. Not…" She crouches down and inspects a flower with a withering glare. "…Things that can die at our neglecting hands."

Liz sighs. "I told you big changes would come with this promotion."

Summer had ended two weeks early for her, with her bags haphazardly packed. The first thing she did when she got off the four-hour flight was to call for two extra-large, extra-cheese pizzas (both were for her. Liz could get a salad or whatever) and hurl Steven's puke-splattered shirt out the window (it landed on Miss Harby's face when she was out walking Bon Jovi, her pug, so Caroline had to give up the rest of her pizza as a peace offering, so that left her with one cold half-eaten slice of pepperoni and too much Dr Pepper). The remainder of the evening was spent halfheartedly flipping through the infomercials on TV and aggressively doing her nails. And then Liz had come home and said, "I have big news!"

"I was expecting a bigger apartment." You know, the usual drill: picture frames artfully placed atop stacked boxes and pizza dinners every few nights. No need for groceries, since they'd just be thrown away whenever Liz gets called to the ever-so-honourable duty of guarding a newer, darker section of New York. "Not suburban hell—"

"You must be the Forbes!" a voice chirps from behind her.

"…lo," Caroline finishes lamely, coming face to face with a woman in a smart salmon-coloured suit. Pantyhose and pearls and Crest Whitestrips smile and all.

"You must be Mayor Lockwood," Liz greets with a warm, albeit tired, smile.

"Oh no, my husband's the mayor," she laughs with her head thrown back slightly. The sort of laugh that you're kind of obligated to laugh along with, which Caroline does, glancing nervously at the squirrels. Not-Mayor Lockwood continues, after recovering, "Call me Carol. I'll show you around your new house."

The welcome mat was perhaps the house's last attempt at charming them, because from the moment Caroline steps foot inside, it's all a bit like the word she hadn't managed to finish earlier.

The walls have stains on them ("Nothing new wallpaper can't fix!") and Caroline's pretty sure the gurgling from the sink is more than just gurgling from the sink ("Check for dead squirrels? Oh Liz, your daughter has a lovely imagination!") and what appeared to be blood stains when Caroline toed the puce-coloured carpets apart ("Sometimes the raccoons here get a little aggressive come mating season.").

"All our new houses were built the same," Not-Mayor Lockwood says with a wistful sigh, and proceeds to gaze out the window with that faraway look in her eyes. "This town has been standing since 1859. Sure, our animal attacks get a little severe from time to time, but our crime rate is virtually zero. You'll have a lot of spare time on your hands, Sheriff."

At this, Caroline scoffs under her breath, but joins Not-Mayor Lockwood by the window anyway. She has to admit, she likes the feeling of being able to take a deep breath without worrying about the state of her lungs

"My whole family grew up here. It's a real tight-knit community." She tugs on her pearls, gives another one of her meaningful smiles. "It's just lovely."

At that moment, a piece of ceiling crumbles to the floor, and a family of overgrown mice scampers out. Between the glowing red eyes and the thunderous scratching against creaky hardwood floors and the deafening screeching, Caroline swears to  _God_  she isn't being dramatic when she faints right into Not-Mayor Lockwood's already-waiting arms.

 

 

 

"Are you quite sure?" Actual Mayor Lockwood asks.

His son Tyler is looking down at his dinner, a pissed off expression on his face. "Dad, Sheriff Forbes already said 'no' in three different ways. What else do you need, Spanish?"

Actual Mayor Lockwood fixes Tyler with an admonishing stare while Not-Mayor Lockwood titters into her white wine. It's all so awkward and textbook-distant-family-ish that she wants to cringe, but the chicken is really good and she hasn't had actual homemade gravy since she was nine (before Liz got promoted to Sheriff), so she focuses on that instead.

"Yes, I suppose the boarding house would be satisfactory," Actual Mayor Lockwood nods. "It's only one night, after all."

"Oh no, we're going to be staying there," Liz says.

Caroline chokes on her mouthful of peas.

"Temporarily," Liz adds, refraining from rolling her eyes as Not-Mayor Lockwood looks at her husband, thin-lipped. "Until we get that pest problem under control. Drink up, honey—you're choking."

Caroline calms down and dodges the predictable foot-nudge her mother sent her way. She supposes she should say something like Thanks for the offer to stay the night, or something, but at that exact moment Tyler started shivering and shaking and upsetting his dinner plate, and Actual Mayor Lockwood snapped at him to go to – for real – the basement.

Weird family.

 

 

 

It was late night by the time they finally managed to load all of their worldly belongings into one of the Lockwood's spare bedrooms (Not-Mayor Lockwood had graciously offered). Caroline makes sure she has all her suitcases of clothes and toiletries—and trophies and yearbooks and her big framed picture of her winning being crowned Bubblegum Blower of 2009 just a few months ago crammed into one box—before going off to find the local boarding house.

She had expected it to be a long drive, but Actual Mayor Lockwood's directions served better than their GPS system and they reached there in no time.

The fourteen-thousand square-foot residence loomed before them in all its Tudor-style glory. As the car crept up the circular driveway (perhaps not to break the silence of the night), Caroline sees that the medieval Batcave stretched out into the forest beyond. From what she's seen of Mystic Falls so far, she's surprised that the boarding house, of dark panels and weather-beaten stone walls was even standing. When she stands before the double doors (of polished Rosewood and a gilded knocker in the form of a gargoyle grinning eerily at her), the building stretches up into the night sky and eclipses the full moon completely.

 

 

 

Liz brings her hand down on the front desk bell and immediately a tired-looking man steps out, of plaid and curly hair. "Welcome to the Salvatore Boarding House." He opens up a thick old book, and Caroline hears the spine crack under the weight of all the names scribbled there.

"I'm Zach Salvatore," he tells them. "Do you have a reservation?"

"We do," Liz says. As Zach slides them their master suite key – and of course it had to look all antique-y – Caroline hugs her little box, of all her possessions in the world, close to her chest. The thought of staying there, and not just  _there_ , but staying, full stop, terrified her.

 

 

 

She peeks her head out of her room after she's brushed her teeth in the toilet that joined her room to Liz's later. Liz is sitting in one of the damask armchairs, her reading glasses perched on the bridge of her nose.

"How long are we going to be here for?" she asks.

Liz doesn't answer.

 

 

 

There's a few days of summer left, so Liz suggests that Caroline go enroll herself at Mystic Falls High. She's too busy to go with Caroline, she says, and Caroline makes a face. She's seventeen, for God's sake. Liz wasn't even there on her first day of  _kindergarten_ , much less Junior Year enrollment.

She's relieved to see that much of the school is exactly the same as Parker Academy, except with less steel and more trees. Students eat lunch on the Green, which was the front lawn according to the little booklet she's reading from. Mrs A. Hawke hands her a flyer on cheerleading tryouts. Mrs A. Hawke says something about how impeccable Caroline's transcripts are. Mrs A. Hawke tells her they're happy to have her and her mother, bless her, for being the new guardian of the town. Mrs A. Hawke tells her to come see her if she has any questions.

"Yeah, I have one," Caroline says, raising her hand halfway. Mrs A. Hawke looks at her with an expectant smile.

"Why are there like, four memorial boards in the front office?" Caroline thumbs the space behind her. "Aren't you worried about all those animal attacks? Because frankly, I've been here for less than forty eight hours and I'm already freaking out."

"What can I say?" Mrs A. Hawke shrugs, losing professionalism for a moment. "Every town needs a niche."

 

 

 

This town is weird, Caroline decides.

 

 

 

Caroline cuts through the cemetery on the way home (home, she thinks to herself with a tiny laugh) and for a cemetery, it's pretty nice there. The air's cool and she can hear birds chirping, and it's bright and airy.

Looking around, there are headstones so old they've practically withered away from all the years, but she can see that they're all the same family names, again and again. Gilbert. Bennett. Salvatore. She thinks she sees a Forbes, but before she can bend down and inspect further, she hears a voice behind her.

"Did you come back for someone?"

She turns around and it's Zach Salvatore. She'd only seen him behind the counter, and in pressed Dockers and worn-out sneakers he's taller than she'd initially observed.

"Excuse me?" she asks, straightening up.

"Nobody new moves her. Ever." Zach (she's allowed to call him that, right? He doesn't look that much older) shrugs and shifts from foot to foot. "And I saw that you're a Founding Family, so…"

Caroline frowns. "A what?"

Zach nods at the gravestone she'd been crouching before. There's mist settling at their feet, and only then does Caroline realize that the time was already creeping into the early evening. "A Forbes."

Caroline sighs. "Coincidence, maybe. My parents never mentioned Mystic Falls before."

"Maybe," Zach says easily. There's that shrug again. "Welcome to town, anyway."

He's about to turn away, but then Caroline's frown deepens and she calls out, "Who mans the front desk when you're not around?"

"My cousins," Zach says without looking back.

"What do you mean nobody ever moves here?" she asks again, but Zach is already lost to the mist.

 

 

 

She wants to stay in her room and read all day, but hunger drags her out of her room to the dining hall, where they're serving the last of breakfast. She sits alone, nursing her lukewarm pancakes and sees someone with dark hair doing the same a couple of tables away.

For a second, they kind of stare at each other (he chewing slowly, she sipping from her glass of orange juice). He appeared to be sizing her up.

After a while he flicks his blue eyes back to his plate, already disinterested. She kicks herself for not being the first one to look away.

 

 

 

Caroline raps impatiently on the front desk for the sixth time, but still no Zach appears. Glancing around furtively, she makes sure no one's around before ducking behind the counter and grabbing hold of the phone. Because of  _course_ her phone has to die out on her when she needs to call Liz, because hello, it's already dinnertime and she doesn't want to be that kid who whines when their mom leaves them alone for even a second, but she's pretty sure she heard an owl hoot somewhere from inside the creaky old dresser and it freaked her the hell out.

(She hates owls. The way they do that totally satanic one-eighty with their heads, just—no.)

She nearly slams the receiver down in the cradle when there's no dial tone and retraces her steps back to her room, frowning worriedly the whole way. She hasn't seen her mother since yesterday morning. They just moved for God's sake; surely Liz can't be immersed in work already?

Caroline turns into a dark hallway and follows the sign that points her to the Salvatore Family library, and the sight and smell of old books calms her right down. It's how daddy would smell after a day of work: cedarwood, sandalwood and leather, mixed in with the sharp smell of bergamot and lemon.

She's walking down a long wall lined with books on the town history (or rather the accounts on animal attacks. She's been here for what, two days, and she's already catching on to the town's campiness), her fingers trailing over bound leather and polished wood. There's a grand marble fireplace in between the two staircases that lead to the central floor of the library, where all the squashy-looking armchairs are. A lone girl sits in one of them, with glowing cappuccino skin and shiny black hair.

The 'hi' escapes Caroline's lips and she almost cringes, but then the girl smiles. "Are you lost?"

"Huh?"

"Nobody comes here. Like, ever." The girl closes the book she'd been reading.  _Lapidem, Lunam et Stellas_  reads the cover. Impressive. "Except me. And Stefan too, I guess."

"It's a great library," Caroline says, looking around. She turns back to the girl and rests her elbows on the dark oak banisters. "I'm Caroline."

"Bonnie Bennett." She offers another smile. "How long are you staying here for?"

"Indefinitely," Caroline echoes the words her mother had said to Zach.

Bonnie's eyebrows disappear into her bangs. "Nobody moves here. Ever. So what brings you here?"

Caroline makes her way down the stairs, pausing in front of the fireplace. "I think there's an owl in my room."

Bonnie rolls her eyes. "No, I meant Mystic Falls."

"My mom's the new town Sheriff."

"So you're a Founding Family?"

"What makes you think that?"

"Well," Bonnie says, "Founding Families – especially the Forbes – usually have a tendency of being the town Sheriff. I just put two and two together." At Caroline's silence, she continues. "So you're a Forbes, I'm guessing? Sorry if I'm being all up your butt. We don't have a lot of newcomers."

"With all the animal attacks, I don't see why," Caroline responds.

"You're catching on fast."

The owner of the third member of their conversation (Stefan, Caroline guesses, since apparently no one else goes to the library) is looking down at the two of them with eyes hooded from the dark of the room. Caroline's eyes follow his as he makes his way towards them. He seems to belong in and to the library, quiet and calculated in his steps.

"There's an owl in your room?" he asks, an elbow resting against the mantelpiece. Caroline looks to Bonnie, who seems to nod reassuringly,  _he's okay_.

Caroline nods,  _yeah_.

 

 

 

Caroline pauses in front of her door, eyes screwed shut. "Um, I think I—"

"It's alright, I have a skeleton key." Stefan rummages in his pockets and produces a key that looks as ancient as the house. The key turns in the lock with a satisfying  _click_ , and the door creaks open. At Caroline's questioning look, Stefan explains: "My family owns the place."

"You're a Salvatore?" Caroline asks, switching on the lights in time to see Stefan nod. Their shadows dance against the golden glow of the lamps (seriously, that's how old this place is. Lamps.) as Caroline leads the way to her room.

"Sorry about the mess," she says of the boxes stacked in a corner and her cheer trophies arranged at the foot of her bed, where her clothes books are strewn. She'd been in the middle of organizing her closet when she heard the low hoots.

She stands a little way back when Stefan steps in, but not because of the impending threat of the owl. The casual sweep of Stefan's eyes may go unnoticed by someone other than Caroline Forbes, cheer captain of the four high schools she'd left behind. She's stood at the top of enough pyramids and done enough backflips to know when she'd being scrutinized.

She clears her throat. "The owl?"

"Right." Stefan gestures to the tall dresser by the window with a lift of his eyebrows, and she nods. "Let's get the little guy out."

The 'little guy' screeches louder than Caroline does when Stefan sticks his hand right in its nest, and for a tiny minute owl manages to nip and scratch at every square inch of Stefan's skin it can get, and then it's doing it's weird head dance to the coven of Satan or whatever, and Caroline finds that she has to look away. In one swift movement, Stefan shoves the window open and all but throws the demonic thing out into the trees.

Stefan goes to check on Caroline, who's huddled in an armchair in the opposite corner of the room, hugging herself. Her eyes are wide and her lips unmoving. "You okay?"

Caroline manages an "Uhuh."

"You took that kind of well, actually," Stefan says, dusting his hands off on his jeans. Caroline gives him a skeptical look. "No, really. We once had a boarder who practically thrw himself out the window whenever these owls come and visit."

Caroline's head whips up, eyes wild. "This happens a lot?"

"An unimaginable amount of my time is spent de-owling rooms," Stefan says with a sage nod. That would explain the flat expression on his face as he'd taken care of the owl, with barely a grunt. Stefan leans back against the wall and breathes a laugh through his nose. "Unimaginable."

"So, uh – what happened to that boarder?" Caroline loosens her iron grip on her knees. "Did he ever get his little owl problem fixed?" She averts her eyes. "Just, you know, curious."

"He died." Stefan pushes himself away from the wall. "You don't need to guess. Animal attack. So I guess he was fixed."

"In a way," Caroline says, hoping the casual air in which she agreed with him masked her shock over how this town saw the goings of its occupants.

"In a way, yeah." Caroline trails Stefan to the door. He pauses and turns back to her, like he wants to say something, but then seems to think better of it. Instead, he says, "If you ever find an owl in your room—"

"I'll know who to call," Caroline finishes, suddenly keen to have him out of her room. She holds out his skeleton key. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." He takes it. As she's swinging her door shut behind him, he says, seemingly as an afterthought, "I hope you enjoy your stay here."

Caroline has a feeling he's not talking about the boarding house.

 

 

 

Thenext morning, Caroline smells coffee and musky perfume and knows Liz is awake. But instead of her mother, there's a note on the table. Caroline opens up a box of Honey Nut Cheerios and eats them dry, filling in the note's blanks as she chews. Liz will (probably) be back by dinner, Caroline (definitely) has to start the day without her (again), and to make sure the flower basket Liz had hung from the tiny ledge outside their window is still alive.

Once done with breakfast, Caroline grabs a mug and fills it halfway with water. Her bare feet pad across the dark carpet as she makes her way to the window of the living room, and she uses her shoulder to push open one of the glass panels.

She pokes her head out to get a good whiff of the flowers, but instead of petunias and morning glories, a tiny, blood-battered very dead owl hangs there instead. Caroline's not sure which is louder—her scream, or the sound of the mug she'd been holding crashing into the asphalt four stories below.

Caroline tries to catch her breath, and decides: This town is  _fucking_  weird.

 

 

 

 

**tbc**

 


	2. Genuinely Frightening Weirdo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's not that hard to get on the list—not saying it's that easy either, of course."
> 
> "Depends on how many people on the list show up dead by the end of semester."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is so severely overdue (and also severely unedited), but it's 4:27am and i feel so guilty for not updating sooner, so i figured... why not. this chapter's for Lint, who makes me feel like i've actually got a good thing going here, but you might change your mind after this chapter.
> 
> also for DJ, because. duh.

It goes without saying that the next few days suck.

When asked why, Caroline would say "The days are too long." Mrs Genevieve, the fruit vendor on Maple Road would say, "All the better to fill your days up with fun things to do!" Caroline would be too polite to tell her to  _eat it_ , and would instead shove an apple into her mouth.

Caroline walks around town with one hand buried deep in the pocket of her jacket, wrapped around the taser Liz had given her, wary of everything—

Screaming kids running down the street ("You mean a rabid animal  _wasn't_  chasing after you, intent on ripping your intestines out of your skin?")—

Cars that drove too slowly ("Yeah, sorry for tapping on your window, just making sure you're not a kidnapper-slash-stalker.")—

Even trees that rustled too loud ("There's something…  _suspicious_  about that tree," she tells Not-Mayor Lockwood, who just titters, clutching at her pearls).

There's nothing to do in a town where the most exciting thing that happens (save the finding of a bloodied corpse) is when Not-Mayor Lockwood announces that this week's knitting club meeting has been cancelled.

 

 

It also doesn't help much that she hasn't been able to sleep at night.

Caroline wrinkles her nose. "It's so… loud."

Liz looks at her from behind her reading glasses. "Loud? I hear nothing."

Caroline smacks her hand down on the table. "Exactly!"

Whenever Caroline complains Liz just rolls her eyes, because back in New York Caroline would keep her window open to hear the sound of tires screeching and cars blaring their horns (and one night when she couldn't sleep she even witnessed a woman in the apartment building opposite her window clobber her husband to death, and she got to go to court and swear an oath and she got a nifty little Visitors badge and it was totally cool) to lull her to sleep, but in a town where rabid raccoons might drag her from her bed into the dark forests beyond?

Hell no.

Sometimes she'll lie in bed, staring up at the ceiling. The branches scratch noiselessly against her window and throw shadows against the walls. Sometimes the wind howls and the roof shingles shake, and she has to pull the covers up over her head and curl up into a ball, praying for a truck or a fat bus or a man on a murderous rampage in a burning car to come driving by—

 _anything_  to drown out the deafening silence, wondering why the hell the Salvatore Boarding House was so hidden away from the rest of the damn world.

She kicks off her covers and puts an ear to the door of Liz's room sometimes. Listens to the sounds her mother makes when she's asleep. Liz snores like a motorbike with bad plugs, in great splutters and tiny wheezes. Caroline feels a little bit better.

 

 

"Woah, eye bags."

Caroline looks up from her scrambled eggs to see Bonnie sliding into the bench across from her. She's wearing her usual smile, so bright on a day so grey, and Caroline can't help but smile back.

"I haven't been getting much sleep," Caroline admits, toying with a grilled tomato.

Bonnie nods like she understands and offers a sympathetic look. "The Henderson twins?"

Katie and Laura. Fourteen. Out shopping for new coats. Found with their necks slashed open behind Eleanor's Ice Cream Parlour, teeth marks ripping into their skin. Caroline sees their case file flashing like an oversaturated film before her eyes and forces herself to swallow some of her breakfast. Closing her eyes doesn't help: they just flash brighter.

(She makes a mental note to tell Liz not to fall asleep at the kitchen table in the middle of her paperwork.)

"Matt's taking it pretty hard, too," Bonnie says. As if on cue, a blonde boy drops his tray next to hers.

"I was their Math tutor," Matt offers flatly in lieu of a greeting. He takes a gulp of his oatmeal and a sip of coffee before turning blue eyes on Caroline. "Matt Donovan. You're Caroline, right? How long you staying for?"

"Indefinitely," Bonnie answers for her.

"That's weird. Nobody moves here—"

"Ever," Caroline finishes. It's starting to get ridiculous. "Yeah, I know." A silence settles around them, and Caroline asks, mostly to break it: "Why do you guys stay here?"

"My parents are never home. Work stuff." Bonnie rolls her eyes. "Like I can't take care of myself—but you know, whatever. They say it's safer here."

"I'd take overprotective parents any day," Matt says, mostly to his breakfast, and Bonnie nudges his side. He looks up and says, "I, uh, work here. Sometimes. Mostly on the weekends, when it doesn't clash with my job at the Grill."

That still didn't really answer her question – not that she cared, nope – and Caroline wants to ask why (again), but there's a set to his jaw and this quiet order of  _I dare you_  in his eyes that makes her drop it.

She scrapes her fork across her plate to the tune of the rumbling thunder outside. "My mom's never really around."

Caroline looks back into his eyes. I can relate, she doesn't say.

Matt offers her a raspberry like he gets it, and Bonnie's smile is nearly blinding.

.

.

Dad calls.

Caroline considers ignoring it, but on the third ring she flips over on her bed, sighs, and reaches for her cell phone. "If you think you can—"

Her stinging comment is cut short when Dad says, "Care, sweetie, I'd love to chat, but could you put your mother on the phone, please? I tried her cell and—"

"She's not home," Caroline says flatly, inspecting a cuticle. "She's been doing that a lot. More than usual. Not being here. Here, where we both are supposed to be. Home."

"Hm, strange," her father concedes distractedly from hundreds of miles away. "Could you tell her to call me back? Tell her it's important." In the background, she can hear muffled laughter—probably Steven. He's laughing.

Caroline swallows the ache that's rising up her throat and turns in on herself. "Okay," she says, all fight gone out of her.

"Thanks, honey." Dad pauses. "Is everything alright? I can't believe this—your mother up and moves you across the country,  _Virginia_ of all places, she doesn't think to…" he trails off, sighing. "Are you okay, Carebear? Settled into the new house?"

"More like  _boarding_  house," Caroline says into her pillow. She can't help it—the last part comes out more like a whine.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, Daddy," Caroline says, feeling small. Despite herself, she says, "I miss you."

"Miss you, too."

 

 

She meets Damon Salvatore as she's making her way down the stairs to look for a working landline, because of  _course_  the power would go out just as her phone dies. It's past eight, and Liz had said she'd be there for dinner, and even though Caroline hadn't believed her in the slightest, she still finds herself with her nose pressed against the window that faces the front lawn of the boarding house since two hours ago.

The man behind the counter isn't Zach, but the one who'd been studying her over syrup and pancakes the other day. She offers a small smile and asks for the phone; he leans over the counter and gives her his hand instead.

"I'll do you one better. If you help me out, I'll make the phone call and  _personally_  go to the sheriff's office myself."

 

 

"What are we looking for again?"

"A stone." Damon rattles a small box and peeks inside before casting it aside. "Flat, translucent. Kinda milky. Might be connected to a chain of sorts." He heads deeper into the room. Caroline sighs, realizing the inevitability of the moment, and follows after him.

After an hour of dirtying her hands and unpacking and re-packing boxes, her hair is riddled with cobwebs and she's more than a little irritated. Damon is still bent over the cracked old bureau in the corner of the dark room, perusing the contents of the creaking drawers. He hadn't seemed to notice the time passing, intent as he is on finding that crystal necklace of his.

"Hey," she says, but it comes out more like a snap. "About that phone call?"

"Have you found the amulet?"

Caroline frowns. "Didn't you say necklace?"

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to." Damon tuts impatiently. "Have you  _found_  it?"

"No," Caroline says, frown turning into a scowl.

"Then I think…" He pushes off with a disappointed grunt when the locket he's inspecting isn't the one, "…not."

 _Dick,_  Caroline grumbles under her breath as she stomps her way up the wooden steps back to the lobby, where she throws herself into one of the uncomfortably squashy sofas with a huff. She waits for Liz there, reeking with the musk of god-knows-how-old dust, but by the time 11pm rolls around she stomps back to her room to shower.

When she finally turns out her lights around midnight, she hears a lock turning in the door, but she's too fed up to answer her mother's call.

 

 

"You said it'd be different here," Caroline says quietly over breakfast. Her mother doesn't answer, because her mother isn't there.

Bonnie looks up from her cornflakes. "You said something?"

"Nope."

Bonnie goes back to her food while Caroline flips through her would-be high school's handbook, reads up on the should-and-shouldn'ts, studies the faces of all her teachers. Nods approvingly at the cheerleading outfits. Runs a finger down the list of students on honour roll.

"Tracking your prey?"

Caroline starts, nearly upsetting her glass, but Stefan's deft fingers catches it before it topples over. Some orange juice slop onto the scrubbed table, and Matt shakes a fist at the ceiling from where he's wiping down the last of the tables across the hall.

 _Sorry_ , Caroline mouths at him.

To Stefan, she says, "Thanks. And, um—excuse me?"

"The look in your eyes," Stefan slides in next to her, and she sniffs, nearly indignant. She's about to rebuke and tell him she hasn't okay'd this, but Bonnie's smiling at him, and she very stupidly remembers that he pretty much owns the place, so.

Well, if she can't be petty about table manners, she can be petty about this. "I've been on the honours list at every high school I've been to."

Stefan smiles at this. "Pretty tough to get into. Just ask your resident smarty-pants here."

"Stop, Stefan," Bonnie says, cheeks warming. "I just like reading, that's all. It's not that hard to get on the list—not saying it's that easy either, of course."

"Depends on how many people on the list show up dead by the end of semester," Caroline says absently, but the minute this thought enters her mind she claps a hand to her mouth, eyes widening, because what the  _fuck_  was that and Jesus what is wrong with her and—

"Caroline," Bonnie gasps, looking horrified. Stefan surveys her strangely, but doesn't say anything.

"I'm sorry! It's just, sometimes I can be really inappropriate and god, this is so uncool and I am so sorry, I just—" Caroline takes in a breath, downs some juice. "And my head gets woozy when I eat artichokes, I wasn't thinking."

Stefan looks at her plate. She's eating pancakes.

 

 

Liz actually drives her to school.

As in, woke up early, packs Caroline a brown paper bag lunch of peanut-butter-and-jelly essentials, presses a kiss to Caroline's forehead like a legit soccer mom in a sheriff's uniform.

"Have a good day at school, honey."

Caroline steps out of the car, but stoops back in to drop the brown bag in the passenger seat. "I can't bring this."

"But I put double layers of peanut butter how you like it!" Liz protests.

" _Mom_. It's not cool."

She can see the smile straining to push through her mother's disapproval, and Caroline almost smiles back. Normalcy. They need this.

Caroline straightens up. "Dad called a few nights ago, by the way."

"Did he?" Liz asks.

"Are you going to call him back?" Caroline prompts, fingers gripping the top of the car door.

"When I'm not busy."

"You're always busy."

"I made time for you," Liz points out, and holds out the lunch bag. Caroline sighs and takes it.

She spots Bonnie on the way to homeroom. Her black hair curls down her orange and white top, and Caroline feels herself fiddle with the sleeve of her own jacket before returning Bonnie's smile.

Barely three days of knowing her and Caroline's already made people uncomfortable with her big fat mouth, but Bonnie had chalked it down to culture shock and brushes it off easily.

Caroline almost wishes Stefan had said something instead of just staring at her with that  _look_  on his face, but then again she might have to deal with … all of that, so. You know. Like that quote about silence being a virtue, or something like tha—

"Oof!" Caroline yelps as she walks into a pillar of fluffy cardigan and perfectly curled hair.

"Oof!" Not-Mayor Lockwood gasps, one hand grasping Caroline's arm to steady herself, and the other clutching at her ever-present pearls. "Well, I never… Oh, good morning, dear. How are you?"

"Fine," Caroline says as cordially as she can manage, trying not to rub her nose. Not-Mayor Lockwood's collarbones are  _sharp_.

Not-Mayor Lockwood smiles kindly. "All settled in?"

Caroline thinks of all her boxes that need unpacking, and of the one drawer in her dresser that she avoids specifically in case of any parasites left behind by Satan's pet, thinks about how her cell phone hardly ever works except when she's lying in a specific corner of her bed, thinks about all the meals she's had without her mother, and says, "No, not really."

Not-Mayor Lockwood blinks, looking like she doesn't know what to say. After a beat, she settled for: "All in good time, darling. Well, must be off. Only came by to drop of my son and have a chat with Miss A. Hawke. And now you too, I suppose." She smiles graciously, as though her one of her motivations of the morning had been to see Caroline off.

Not-Mayor Lockwood goes off in a flurry of J'Adore Gold, not looking back once, so there was really no need for Caroline to be waving at her back, but she feels like Not-Mayor Lockwood would know these things.

The bell rings.

Cursing, Caroline hitches her bag up her shoulder and runs.

 

 

First period, World History. Mr Saltzman smiles at her as she walks in, and she takes a seat somewhere in the middle of the class.

Matt shifts in his seat two tables away, but nods in greeting. Stefan sits a few rows behind him, talking quietly with a pretty brunette. He shoots her a smile when he notices her looking, and the girl gives her a glance as well.

Caroline looks back at Mr Saltzman before she's called on.

The period whizzes by and Caroline writes down notes, easy stuff, looping her G's and Y's and crossing her T's in perfect parallel. Trigonometry's next, and she records the day's learnings the same way with her purple ink pen.

Caroline lingers by her locker while other students shoulder their way down the hall to get to the Green. Classes, she thinks, are a breeze compared to lunchtime. That's where the real challenge is.

Exhibit A: Tyler Lockwood, despite having had her over for dinner at his house (well, half of dinner anyway, since he had his chocolate mousse in the basement), brushed by her without so much as a glance, intent as he is to get to his bologna sandwich with the rest of his jock buddies.

Exhibit B: As friendly as Bonnie is, she and Stefan rush out of class deep in conversation, Matt following closely behind, without even a glance behind.

Exhibit C: While standing in line to get something that wasn't peanut butter and most definitely not bologna, she is on the receiving end of conversations that go like

"Hey, you're the new girl," Shelby Can says, pointing her celery at her.

"Yeah, " Caroline says wearily, "nobody new—"

" _Ever_  moves here," Ben Harper enthuses with a mouthful of unpaid mystery meat. The lunch lady reprimands him shrilly.

"It's really not that—"

"Cool," Ben Number 2 says, just as earnestly. "New blood in our town."

" _Cool_ ," Ben Harper agrees.

Caroline abandons the line and goes back to her lunch bag.

In terms of luncheon hierarchy, Caroline knows how it goes. At Parker Academy she'd be sitting with the rest of her girls, talking routines and regionals, the conversation personal yet detached. They would be two tables away from the art freaks, who sat with people who thought they were cool but never got invited to parties. They would be sitting far from the white boys who think they could rap, and farthest away from the genuinely frightening weirdo, who always sits alone.

In her spot at the very edge of the Green, and the past weeks' events considered, she thinks she knows who this year's Genuinely Frightening Weirdo is.

Shit sucks.

"You. You're the new face."

Caroline is almost grateful to look away from her lunch, at a girl with wavy blonde hair who looked like she just sucked a lemon. She's flanked by a guy who looks like he'd convinced her to suck said metaphorical lemon, smug as he is.

"And you're in our spot." The girl doesn't wait for a response, just nudges her aside to set down her tray. "But you're new and I'm bored, so I'll let you stay."

"Thanks," Caroline says uncertainly. "I'm Caro—"

"Lovely," the girl says. "I'm Rebekah with a K, Queen of the school. Capital Q, and it's an official title: Mrs A. Hawke melded a plaque for me and everything." A group of students rushes past them just then, and in the flurry of varsity jackets and the scent of hair product, Caroline manages to catch Stefan in the crowd.

Rebekah wrinkles her nose in distaste.

"Well, Queen on the days when Elena Gilbert and her mystery gang don't come to school. Which is a lot, and which is apparently right now, since they're leaving."

"Shocker," the guy next to Rebekah says into his bottle of blackcurrant juice.

Rebekah isn't quite done yet. "They mostly try to defend this town against my ghastly older brother, keeps them preoccupied. He pisses them off a lot. Anger issues. Lots of teeth."

Caroline isn't sure how to respond.

Rebekah doesn't really hanker for one. She prattles on about this and that ( _this_  mostly being 'that insipid Elena Gilbert' and  _that_  constituting of 'you don't need to know who she is' and then adding 'she's a wench') and concludes with, "…so you can sit with us today, but don't get too excited for an invite tomorrow. Oh yes, this is my other brother."

"I'm Kol," he offers. "Also with a K."

"You've said enough," Rebekah says promptly. "So Caro, what brings you to town? And nobody—"

"Nobody new ever moves here, I get it!" Caroline says irritably, but Rebekah narrows her eyes.

"I was going to say nobody packs peanut butter and jelly sandwiches anymore,  _actually_."

Caroline feels her cheeks warming up. She wants to wipe that shit-eating grin off of Kol's face.

"And what is that, Wonder Bread?" Rebekah continues. "So kitsch."

Caroline inches her sandwich closer to her, suddenly feeling very protective of it. "My mother packed this for me." Almost as soon as she said it, Caroline realizes how lame it sounds.

"Oh." Rebekah looks down at her cafeteria-packed salad. "How—how nice."

"D-do you want want?" Caroline asks, baffled by this complete one-eighty.

"Absolutely not." And, Caroline shits you not, Rebekah actually turns her nose up. But she adds, hesitantly, "Thank you, anyway."

Kol snorts, popping a chip in his mouth. There's some red on his lower lip, glistening in the midday sun. "Going soft now, Beks?"

Rebekah spears a cherry tomato. "Shut up, Kol. Caro won't even remember this."

Caroline takes it back. She's definitely not the Genuinely Frightening Weirdo around here. "Won't even remember what?"

 

 

The boarding house is throbbing with music.

"Good evening, Caroline," Zach yells over the din. "Had a good day at school?"

"Swell," Caroline screams back. The edge of the counter digs into her ribs as a girl dances past her. The staircase leading to her room is blocked by crates of beer. Like, literally no amount of shoving or clambering would get her over it. "Is there another way up?"

Zach cups a hand around his ear. "What?"

"How am I supposed to get to my room?"

"I don't condone drugs!" Zach yells. "But you should check with Tyler in the parlour!"

"Whatever, you piece of shit receptionist!" Caroline shouts, and Zach nods at her and smiles his  _yeah_.

She leaves her books and binder on the counter and shoves and pushes her way out of the lobby. The lights have been dimmed and the air's smoky with cigarette smoke and the sweet, acrid smell of weed.

In the parlour where the music is considerably lower, Tyler's sprawled with the rest of his jock buddies, giggling like little garden gnomes. Tyler catches sight of her, but this time he gives her an easy smile, his eyes disappearing behind the magnitude of his smile. She smiles back, and then chastises herself for feeling relieved.

 _You don't like it here_ , she reminds herself, and turns away, right into Stefan's chest.

"Woah," he steps back. There's a Somersby's bottle in his hand, chilled. "Planned any murders lately?"

"Ha ha," Caroline gripes, stepping back as well. "You have a really screwed up perspective of murder, you know that?" She looks around her, suddenly feeling self-cautious of where she is. "I didn't peg you for a stoner."

"What?" Stefan laughs easily. "Nah, I'm confiscating." He holds up a baggie of mushrooms.

Someone in the room starts laughing at something, there's a scuffle—"Hey… hey,  _hey_ … don't break the circle, man"—and another person throws up into the fireplace.

The fire crackled and hissed, and the smell immediately permeated in the air. Caroline could practically _see_  the fumes curling around her, and she wants to wretch.

"Let's get you out of here," Stefan says, and with surprising strength, half-carries her out of the room by her shoulders. He drops the shrooms on the front desk, and Zach pretends to throw them away, but Caroline sees him slip it into his drawer.

It's hard enough to navigate through the room without being elbowed in the gut, what with all the writhing and dancing bodies around them, but somehow they manage to get to the kitchen. It's quaint (Ha! Caroline thinks), with buttercup walls, scrubbed counters and rose-printed curtains. Vases of fresh flowers are arranged messily in a corner of the room, no doubt moved from various spots in the boarding house in pre-party preparations, but despite that, the room still smells like the inside of a beer can.

"Great party," Matt greets forlornly by the island counter, which is smeared with salt and scattered with cuts of lime. "Wonder who'll be cleaning up tomorrow."

"Take the day off," Stefan suggests, offering Caroline a drink. She refuses the cider but takes the beer, figuring if a rager wouldn't bring her mother home, alcohol in her system would.

"I don't need your charity," Matt snaps, and heads out.

"So…" Caroline says of the awkward silence that followed Matt's dramatic exit (which was unfortunately interrupted by a girl passing out at his feet, so he couldn't exactly ignore Stefan when they were both guiding her to a chair in a corner of the room).

"Back to school party," Stefan says, almost apologetically. "Tyler's idea."

Caroline finds a salt-free space on the counter and props herself up. "Couldn't you just say no? You own the place."

He shrugs. "I figured they deserved it. What with all the murders lately."

"Animal attacks does not a murder make," Caroline says, thinking of Mrs A. Hawke.

"Right," Stefan concedes, leaning against the fridge. Her shin brushes against his knees when she swings her legs, so she stops. If he notices, he doesn't say anything.

For a while, Caroline watches him, watches the way he lifts the bottle to his lips, watches the way his Adam's apple bobs when he takes a swig. He looks at ease where he is, despite the swaying drunks coming and going through the kitchen.

It occurs to her that there'll be a lot of sheets that needs cleaning tomorrow, but when she brings this up to Stefan, all he does is laugh again. "We lock all the doors."

"What if they swipe the skeleton key?" Caroline asks. Not like Zach does a great job of manning the front desk, she doesn't add. "Unless you keep it on you at all times, which greatly relieves and kind of creeps me out at the same time."

Stefan doesn't smile, as much as he just lifts a corner of his lips, like his face isn't used to it. It's the same way when he laughs, Caroline's beginning to notice.

"And why's that?"

"For one thing," Caroline begins, circling a finger on the mouth of her drink, "I'd very much like it if my bed remains sex-free, unless I'm the one having said sex—"

Stefan chuckles into his drink.

"—but knowing you can just come and go, free as you like, doesn't fly well with me."

"I do carry it with me at all times, but it's mostly a safety precaution," Stefan assures her. "I don't use it unless I absolutely have to."

"And the other day?"

"You looked like you were about to faint on your feet," he says pointedly. "All the blood drained from your face."

Caroline shrugs. "I hate owls."

"And I hate when people invade my privacy, so you don't have to worry about that with me." The way Stefan says it, it's like a promise.

Caroline would normally, naturally be even more suspicious after this, but with him, she believes him.

Right off the bat.

 

 

"Don't these people have class tomorrow?" Caroline asks hazily after a shot of tequila, ceremoniously passed into her hand by someone far more drunk that she is. She nearly screams when someone crashes right through the kitchen window, and what the  _fuck_ , it's Mr Saltzman from first period World History, totally wasted.

"Does that answer your question?" Tyler giggles into her shoulder, and hey, when did his arm wrap around her waist? She untangles herself from him, surveys the girl Matt had saved earlier (still passed out in a corner), and thinks: This  _sucks_.

Small town suburbanites who get drunk off of like, one shot of tequila. How lame. This is what her life has been reduced to. She steps over her teacher's still form, and her vague inquiries of whether or not he's still alive are answered when someone yells "Yo! He's still breathing!", and the kitchen erupts with cheers.

"Ric!" Someone pushes past her and crouches down, and hey, it's the brunette Stefan was whispering to this morning (not that she'd noticed or anything). "For God's sake, Ric."

"Is he alright, Elena?" Bonnie appears right behind her, looking equally as exasperated. She spots Caroline. "Hey. Totally embarrassing, right?"

"Well…" Caroline begins mildly, but shuts her mouth when she realizes it was probably rhetorical, because Bonnie's helping the brunette—Elena, she's heard that name before somewhere, but she just can't place it—prop Mr Saltzman up.

Caroline grabs a wet cloth from the counter and helps squeeze it over Mr Saltzman's face.

He splutters.

Elena almost deflates in relief, causing the three of them to stagger, until Damon shows up and they all tense.

"Come here, buddy." Damon bundles Alaric into his arms, and to Caroline, he says: "You. Unhelpful."

To Elena: "You. Great kisser. Equally unhelpful."

He starts to turn to Bonnie, but she just says, "Bite me— _not_ literally" and promptly leaves, Damon following at her heels.

"What was that, right?" Elena laughs, a bit nervously. "I'm Elena. Gilbert."

"Caroline Forbes." She stares after Damon's retreating back. "You kissed Damon?"

Elena looks upset. "I—well, I did, but like, it was an experiment thing—he wanted to see if I still loved this other guy. Stefan. I just—"

At her flustered expression (and the fact that she felt like she even  _needed_  to explain herself) and red cheeks, Caroline realizes Elena's drunk. Caroline rubs a hand down her face and wrenches vodka from Tyler's vice grip, swigging it straight from the bottle.

She resurfaces coughing, but the world looks a little more welcome. She takes another gulp, and realizes she's been in this kitchen for the better (or worse) part of the night.

"God, let's get out of here."

 

 

"Stefan," Elena says like she's surprised when they run into him on the way to Caroline's bedroom (Caroline was trying to convince her that she's way too drunk to be driving home).

"Elena," Stefan says carefully, and turns to Caroline. "Thanks for taking care of her."

"But you'll take her off my hands now?' Caroline asks (a little hopefully, because seriously, she doesn't even know this Elena Gilbert, and  _double seriously_ , she's only dipped her toes in the girl's love life and already she's come up drenched.

So not here for this.)

"'Fraid not, Blondie." Damon appears out of nowhere,  _again_. "We've got stuff to do."

Caroline blows her bangs out of her eyes. "What, stuff like rooting through dusty boxes for vaguely-described objects for hours on end?"

"Yes, of which you ditched halfway. Totally not going to be cliché and thank you sarcastically." Damon holds out his hand and retracts it, makes an annoying  _access denied_  sound. "I'm just going to tell you straight up, you suck."

"That's quite enough of that," Stefan says, stepping in between them, but Caroline just rolls her eyes and pushes back to face Damon again.

"I don't need you fighting my battles for me," she tells him a little snootily. Whatever. He's totally charming, what with his de-owling and half-smiles, but Elena's looking at him like he's just saved a truck filled with puppies from plunging off a bridge, and it's kind of a lot to take right now. Especially with all the vodka she's had.

"That's what I'm always telling him," Elena says quietly, somewhere away from this weird sandwich of Salvatores—

Sandwich.

Salvatores.

Caroline yelps, and both Salvatores—both  _Salvatores_ —almost jump. "Are you guys like, brothers?"

"Uh…" Damon rubs the back of his neck, glancing at Stefan.

Stefan squints. "Yeah?"

Elena covers her face with her hands, already knowing where this is going.

"Seriously?" she all but howls, and Elena takes a step back, startled. "How is this even an issue right now!"

"Why are you yelling?" Damon yells.

"Because the music is  _stupidly loud_ , and my mother isn't even back yet to bust us!"

"That's—that's a good thing," Stefan says, but poor thing, he's just doing guesswork now.

"Of course it is," Caroline says, getting weepy. "But I want her here. I want her yelling. God, this is stupid. And  _you_ ," she sets accusing eyes on Elena. "Stop kissing these brothers."

"You don't even know me," Elena says. Her eyes are round and blinking up at her: a little unfocused, a lot startled.

"Well, I'm drunk, and I don't really give a shit right now." Caroline staggers back, right into the wall. "Except I do. God, this is weird." She slumps down, just a little, hating the way Stefan's looking at her, like he's concerned. "I want to go home."

"I'll take you to your room," Stefan offers, but she bats his hand away.

"I am not letting someone who thought it was a good idea to throw a party on a  _school night_ ," Caroline says heatedly, gathering her bearings, "and then invited their  _school teacher_ —"

"That was all Ric, he crashed," Damon says, raising a finger.

"—who apparently is on first-name basis with  _everyone in this room_ —"

"Not me, man," a boy insists profusely from somewhere behind her. "I don't even know what Mr Alaric Saltzman's first name is."

"—to walk me to my room. I know where it is," she slurs, rooting for her key in her bag.

Damon just stares at her. "Why are you scratching at air?"

"I'm looking for my key," Caroline snaps, before—oh.

"Yeah…" Damon's nodding slowly, shooting his brother some crazy eyes.

Stefan sighs, gently taking hold of her elbow as he guides her away. "Come on."

"G'bye, Caroline," Elena calls after her mournfully from behind Damon.

 

 

"Watch your step," Stefan says unnecessarily as a giggling couple almost bowl her over in their plight to run downstairs. "A women tripped and broke her neck once."

"Suicides, accidental deaths, creepy owls," Caroline says, her nose bumping into Stefan's sweater. "And this building still stands."

"We're made of tougher stuff than that," Stefan tells her, and Caroline regards this silently as they make their way to the fourth floor.

With every step they take, the smell of alcohol hanging around them, the headache-inducing music, the haze of smoke and the loud chatter fade away into a gentle hum, a murmur in the air, a wrinkle in time as Stefan guides Caroline up another flight of stairs and down a dim hallway.

Stefan unlocks her door for her, but unlike last time, doesn't usher her in. It's too dark to see his face, too dark to know what he's thinking, and it occurs to her, it's probably too dark for him to know what she's thinking as well.

"Doesn't it bother you?"

Stefan doesn't have to ask what. He leans against the damask wallpaper, head tilted as he tries to make out her features in the shadow of the hallway. "We're not together. Not anymore."

Caroline slides down a couple of inches against the wall, then all the way to the floor. "Doesn't answer my question."

Stefan sighs. "It does, now that it's quiet."

"Oh," Caroline says, inching just a tad bit to the left to make space for Stefan. "You're being totally cool about your brother kissing your g—ex-girlfriend though." She pauses, but decides what the hell. "Almost as cool as you are with all these killings."

He looks at her, really looks at her, and from their spot on the ground, a pale stripe of light falls across her face from the moon hanging high in the sky outside the window. "So are you."

Caroline shrugs. "I saw a woman clobber her husband to death when I was thirteen."

Stefan leans his head back, and they both stare at the open door of her room, a rectangle of nothing cut into the darkness. It yawns open, and for a moment, Caroline believes that it would lead to other places, places dank and faraway, places that are definitely not her bedroom.

"The word that you are looking for," Stefan says with an edge to his voice, "is detachment."

"You can't just switch off your emotions like that, Stefan." A flicker of—something—on his face, but before Caroline can figure out what it is, it's gone. "Anyway, it's late. And I have my first Chem lab tomorrow."

He nods, climbing to his feet. She reaches a hand out for him to pull her up, and he does, with the smallest of smiles. She could've sworn he gives her a little pat on the head, but she's too tired to protest. "Get some rest."

"I was planning on doing some backflips on the roof, but now that you've told me otherwise, I am seriously considering it," she says, not too tired to protest  _this_. She turns around half-heartedly at the last minute. "My bag…"

"I'll get it for you," Stefan says, pushing her gently into her room. She barely remembers locking the door behind her and kicking out of her jeans: just that when she wakes up in the morning she has a slight headache and a bitter taste in the back of her throat.

The smell of coffee is a welcome one as she shuffles into the kitchen for a handful of frosted flakes. Liz sniffs the air and squints her eyes at her daughter, but doesn't say anything. She folds up the day's news and lifts Caroline's bag onto the table. "Found this outside our door when I got in last night."

Caroline, who had been expecting another dead owl, just nods and roots through it to check if anything was missing. "Must have forgot it. Did you have a nice night?"

Liz sighs. "You know, the usual. I need to get in early this morning. Anything you need, sweetheart?"

Come to think of it… "Could you pack my lunch for me again?"

Liz smiles knowingly at her, and goes to get the peanut butter.

**Author's Note:**

> I started playing around with this idea last year, writing down paragraphs here and there, and I guess a story took shape.
> 
> I didn't really want to post this up until I'd finished it, but my will is utterly weak. Review and tell me what you think?


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